


MOUNTAIN GOD

by Little Giant (Destini)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aran POV, Dreams, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destini/pseuds/Little%20Giant
Summary: The universe breathed in ocean spray.It was the end of the world, yes, but he wasn’t afraid.And then there was Kita.a short story about a lamp and lights and golden waves at a shrine
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Ojiro Aran
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	MOUNTAIN GOD

**Author's Note:**

> It's my birthday! :) so I'm posting older fics~

It’s the first time the recurring echoes of his subconscious—or maybe his past lives, past ghosts, past mistakes—remain haunting the seconds after his eyelids have opened. Whenever Aran dreams, he doesn’t see faces or objects, maybe occasional doors and his own distorted reflections, everything else artfully smudged by a moon-sized and water-soaked paintbrush tip.

But now. There’s fatigue hot in his temple, a dull blade that’s still managing to split open his skull and recall the jarring details of things that have previously been vague feelings and colors. Aran wonders if he’s making up the memories of sharp eyes tearing into his. But it was somehow  _ too  _ real, too much to have ever been pulled from his own wishful thinking.

He sits up and leans against his bed’s headboard, legs still wrapped in covers as he searches for the beginning, the first sharp contrast of color that made an image in his dream.

Aran sat on a red torii that jutted high at the top of a mountain with a rising sea, fingers flexing on painted wood and legs dangling, feet pointed to a great beyond. Waters approached in gentle waves—like a beach yet with no shore, splashing silently against the pillar bases, lacquered gold from a setting sun.

The entire universe stretched to this single point, where crystal-blue skies met gold. And Aran was alone.

The shrine that belonged to the torii, once-upon-a-time, must’ve stood strong and imposing to have elaborate, tiny carvings on the gate’s board. Aran imagined intricately painted ceilings and stairs, more beautiful with time and rust that wistful, wandering hands maybe mistook for nostalgia.

If he squinted far below at the base of the pillars where the water licked, he could make out sharp blades of swaying grass. Drowned grass attempted to hide dwarf gobies and purple emperor butterflies that continued to graze across weeds and flowers.  The universe breathed in ocean spray.   


It was the end of the world, yes, but he wasn’t afraid.

And then there was Kita.

Kita had emerged with the mystery and impossibility of an aberration—one moment nothing, and then just him, walking steadily up the mountain path. He carried a staff with several dangling lanterns, lights undistorted by water, but his old Inarizaki uniform floating around him with all the weight of subspace. It began to cling to him as, bit-by-bit, he traded inhales of water like golden seed oil for the exhales of cool blue air . At the pillars of the torii, his head arose with clinging soaked bangs, followed by a gentle smile.

Droplets clung to his eyelashes as Kita stood, water continuing to rise and already dancing around his waist.

“Aran-kun, what’re you doin’ ‘ere?” he chuckled, as if meeting him here was only a mildly odd occurrence, as if the world was still spinning and they were meeting on a common street, separate errands connecting them on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

“I don’t know,” he answered. Aran had stared at his razor-sharp eyes and the contours of his face, traced the remains of the ocean as it cradled down to his chin.

“Do ya wanna come up? Yer soaked, Kita-san.”

But Kita shook his head, undeterred by the water that now sliced a line through his neck.

“I’m fine.”

Aran swallowed bile and nerves, hands jittery as he contemplated how to climb down long, long pillars.

“Stay,” Kita said hurriedly. “I’m goin’ back, I just wanted to give this to ya.”

He raised his arms, presenting him with the staff. It glowed brighter before he gave a light toss, enough to send it floating out of his fingers and swaying in slow circles up to Aran.

“Why?”

Pretty, dewy eyelashes blinked with the same ease of the grin that slowly lit up his face. “It’d make me happy for ya to have it.”

Many things surprised Aran—full-bellied laughter from his mother, Valentine’s chocolates, stray dogs that licked at his shoes, broken nails, good fast food, earnest words from irritant twins. But this surprise was different, sweeter, because it was Kita and Kita was familiar and Kita made his heartbeat steady instead of erratic.

Aran opened his hands and let the staff with its weightless lanterns settle in his palms. He thumbed over the wood, bringing it closer to his face to see there were tiny engravings of foxes.

“Do ya like it, Aran-kun?”

His mouth may have said the words “no,” something about “loving,” instead, was the shape of Kita’s name on his lips and rushing out of his mouth and his steady heartbeat faltering when faced with that latest surprise.

Not so far away from the end of the world’s quiet calm, Aran stretches across his bed where the sheets crinkle like tides over his legs. He looks over to his desk and to the prized possession he keeps there. It’s Kita’s parting graduation gift to him—a pretty, miniature lantern.

He reaches over to pick it up, a rare occurrence when normally Aran opts to slide a fingernail down the exterior. It’s mahogany, or garnet if it’s late and he only has the pale light of his phone illuminating his room. Gold waves etch across its base, waves he’s surely traced deeper over the months. If he were to light a fire now, it might glow just like his dream with the waves appearing to move back and forth in the flame.

Aran doesn’t light it.

Instead, he closes his eyes and rests the lantern on his chest like a comforting weight. He’s here in this world, with a Kita who doesn’t breathe underwater but does , indeed, smile and speak with the mindfulness of a wandering god.

Aran’s aware of the rising sun trickling through his blinds because the sunrays are pleasantly warm, surely golden on bronze skin. The hectic day that awaits him, Aran is also aware of. More-so, he knows that all he needs is to take it one step at a time.

There aren’t floating lanterns to guide him, but there are phone calls, promises, train tracks, things that are more meaningful than a mountain path.

It’s not the end of the world as long as those things exist, so Aran smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter post of this fic: [link](https://twitter.com/OfLittleGiants/status/1322308320649224193?s=20)


End file.
